Al-Adami
أبو علي الحسين بن محمد الآدمي
A page from Techniques, Walls, and the Making of Sundials
Born	fl. c. 925
Academic work
Era	Islamic Golden Age
Main interests	Maker of scientific instruments
Notable works	Kitab takhlTt al-sa v at wa inhiraf al-hTtan wa’l-zilalat wa alTad al-sumut

ʿAbū ʿAlī al‐Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al‐Ādamī (Arabic: أبو علي الحسين بن محمد الآدمي; flourished in Baghdad c. 925) was a maker of scientific instruments who wrote an extant work on vertical sundials, Techniques, Walls, and the Making of Sundials^[1][2] (Kitab takhlTt al-sa v at wa inhiraf al-hTtan wa’l-zilalat wa alTad al-sumut).^[3] The manuscript, which is held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, contains tables that enabled the drawing of lines to show any desired angle of latitude.^[1] The surviving copy of al-Adami's 10th century manuscript (Arabe 2506,1 (fols. 1r-62r) dates from the 15th century, which King has suggested was written either by al-Adami or by a contemporary, Sa'id ibn Khafif al-Samarqandi. The tables on folios. 31v–33v were intended to be used in the construction of a vertical sundial.^[4]

According to the Iranian polymath al-Biruni, al-Adami was the first to demonstrate solar and lunar eclipses using a "disc of eclipses". Al-Adami was named in the Fihrist, written by the 10th century scholar Ibn al‐Nadīm.^[1]

The astronomer Ibn al-Adami, who is thought by scholars to have been al-Adami's son, wrote Naẓm al‐ʿiqd (now lost), a zīj that used information obtained from the Sindhind, an Indian source translated into Arabic by the 8th century mathematician and astronomer Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī. The Naẓm al‐ʿiqd was first published in 949/950.^[1]

References

Sources

• Dodge, Baynard, ed. (1970). The Fihrist of al-Nadim: a Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture. Translated by Dodge, Baynard. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-02310-2-925-4.
• Jamil Ragep, F.; Bolt, Marvin (2007). "Ādamī: Abū ʿAlī al‐Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al‐Ādamī". In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. ISBN 9780387310220. (PDF version)
• King, David A. (2004). Daiber, H.; Pingree, D. (eds.). In Synchrony With The Heavens: Studies In Astronomical Timekeeping And Instrumentation In Medieval Islamic Civilization. Islamic Philosophy, Theology, And Science. Vol. 1: The Call of the Muezzin. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 90-04-12233-8.
• Rosenfeld, B. A.; Ekmeleddin, Ihsanoğlu (2003). Mathematicians, Astronomers, and Other Scholars of Islamic Civilization and Their Works (7th–19th c.). Series of Studies and Sources on (the) History of Science. Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA). ISBN 92-9063-127-9.

Further reading

• Jayyusi, Salma Khadra, ed. (1994). The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Vol. 2. Leiden; New York: Brill Publishers. p. 963. ISBN 978-90040-9-599-1.

External links

• Manuscript Arabe 2506 from Gallica, which contains the unique copy of al-Adami's treatise on vertical sundials